Blood
by EoEDaD
Summary: She loved them and hated them. Shouldn’t they cancel each other out? Dragon and archer, love and hate? She looked at the bloody mess that had been her room. Perhaps they don't cancel: perhaps they simply explode on contact. RaeMal, sad.
1. I

**A/N:** I've got to stop writing when I'm nervous about something. Out of the two people I've shown this to, one has asked if I have some sort of blood fetish (the answer is a resounding _no_, by the way), and the other one's informed me that it's not _too_ gruesome-- for something that I write. Meh. And I was trying to tone this down, too.

I messed with the tenses a lot, and they switch around after the line break, so I might have gotten mixed up somewhere.

* * *

**Blood**

She didn't know why she did it, really.

_Blood._

Or, if she did, she chose not to name it, preferring instead the deliberate ignorance of those who, by not labeling their actions, allow them to remain a vague, shapeless sense of guilt and not a clear accusation—because the trial is one that they could not win.

_There is so much blood— staining her bed crimson and drying, rust-red, on her walls._

The others wanted to know what had happened, but how could she tell them when she couldn't even admit her guilt to herself?

_She cannot look away, though she wants to. But what remains of Speedy and his lover has her staring in unbroken, horrified fascination. Through a medley of disjointed thoughts, she wonders at the fact that so much blood could come from just two bodies._

She knows, though, that it was not only anger and base, petty jealousy that led her to watch silently, almost invisible in the shadows, while her boyfriend led another woman through the Tower. It was that she didn't even _consider_ that he might stoop so low as to cheat on her in her own bedroom, not knowing what lay, just barely contained, in the locked chest at the foot of her bed.

_At first, once she gathers herself enough to think logically about what happened, she believes that they attempted something… _unusual_ with a spell, and it went very wrong. But Speedy is no wizard and he knows—knew— it, and any sane magic user would have sensed the demonic aura around her room and gotten out of there as fast as possible. It is only then that she begins to notice the deep scratches on her furniture, the scorch marks on her carpet._

She wanted to believe that, had she guessed his intentions, she would have stopped him. She would also have castrated him, true, and probably taken the opportunity to practice some of the darker curses she knew, but she would not have let him walk right into a bloody, painful death. Not even for revenge on a betrayal of the second order (for she has also experienced betrayal of the first order, and, oddly enough, she thinks that that situation was much less painful) would she be that heartless. Or so she wanted to believe. In her darker moments, she wondered.

_The pages of the book are illegible, so drenched in blood that she inadvertently tears it when she tried to turn a page, but she knows from the moment she picks it up that he is gone. From there, the rest falls together nicely, pieces fitting together cleanly, like the jigsaw puzzle of an omnipotent madman._

She couldn't think of a way to tell her friends that she had deliberately loosened the bindings that held the dragon as a sign of trust—or, rather, she couldn't think of a way to tell them that wouldn't result in being yelled at, and she simply didn't have the patience for that, after everything that has happened. So she didn't tell them. After all, they didn't ask.

_The air is heavy with the stench of blood, so heavy that she cannot sense the smoke until she knows what she is looking for. She inhales, and shudders as a familiar scent hits her nostrils. Dragonfire._

They didn't ask, and she knew that they wouldn't. Perhaps they didn't think of it; perhaps they thought it would be too upsetting for her. She didn't know, but they didn't ask, and that was all that she cared about.

_It is hours before she emerges from the roof, where she has been alternately meditating and wallowing in self-pity, and it will be hours more before one of her teammates comes and finds her. She will not go to them: it seems sacrilegious to leave these mutilated scraps of human flesh unattended._

She had loved Malchior for his dark wit, for his cynicism that was so like her own but somehow not, for all that he could teach her and for all that he understood about her. She hated him for his lies, and then for this.

_It takes her a minute to recognize the sharp, stinging sensation behind her eyes._

She had loved Speedy for his quick smile and his lighthearted banter, for the revelation that it was possible for someone like him to be interested in her, for the way he managed to make her forget the darkness that was a part of her own identity. She hated him for the blonde, blue-eyed, giggling fool of a girl he had led into _her_ room, knowing full well how much she valued her sanctuary.

_A tear trickles down her cheek, and she makes no attempt to wipe it away._

She loved them and hated them. Shouldn't they cancel each other out? Dragon and archer, love and hate?

_She makes a shallow cut in her palm, letting fresh blood mingle with the clotted liquid splashed over her room, and says a short incantation of peace and forgiveness. The intent of the spell is to put departed souls at rest: she hopes that her own roiling emotions don't imperil its effectiveness._

She weathered her friends' explosions of anger and grief with her customary, inscrutable composure. No one but her was allowed in her room: not even Robin would have been able to see such a sight and walk away undamaged. The twisted nature of the situation is such that nobody seems to quite know what to say to her (really, what _could_ one say to a girl whose first love had just ripped her second to shreds while he was cheating on her in her own room?), so they for the most part left her alone.

_She opens her mouth in shock, and the coppery scent becomes a metallic taste on her tongue. Blood pervades her every sense, and she levitates off the ground instantly. Not even the lowest of the demons will tread heedlessly on a corpse—and this entire room has become a corpse._

It was lucky for her that they did so, because they definitely wouldn't have approved of the project that began to consume her thoughts: finding Malchior. He must have left after killing Speedy and the girl (she never did discover her name), but where could he have gone? She couldn't explain her fixation beyond that fact that he had done this for _her_, had make _her_ the indirect cause of this tragedy, and she didn't know if she pitied or hated him for it.

_She reaches down and gathers a handful of blood-soaked ashes before she is aware of her actions. A moment of hesitation, uncertainty, and then she pulls a clean, uncontaminated bowl from a cabinet and drops them in there._

She eyed the container warily. Five years before, this particular spell would have driven her quite literally mad, and she wasn't sure that it wouldn't do so this time, too.

_A lock of red hair lies on the floor, and she closes her eyes in bone-deep sorrow._

It was a combined location and teletransportation spell that she was trying to use, and she didn't know if she could pull it off. But she would try—she scarcely felt that she had any choice in the matter.

_She looks around, taking a dark, morbid sort of humor in this total and final obliteration of her romantic life. Here is what her two lovers have left her with: blood, ashes and betrayal. Always, above all, betrayal._

She fell hard when she landed, hitting a rocky floor with enough force to bruise most of her left side. She looked up and saw the dark, gaping maw of what looked to be a secluded cave. So, the stories about dragons preferring caverns for their lair were true, after all.

_Death is nothing new to her, but this… this is beyond anything she has ever seen._

Her muscles ached as she rolled awkwardly to her other side and used a conveniently placed rock to pull herself upright. "Bruised and slightly dazed" wasn't the condition she would have chosen to be in for this particular task, but the same mysterious emotion that prompted her coming refused to let her leave.

She took a slow step towards the entrance, keeping one hand firmly planted on the rock to disguise the way her legs were threatening to collapse underneath her.

There was only a second of warning, and she was still facing the cave when she sensed him coming up behind her. She instinctively reached out to try to gauge his emotions, surprised by the lack of malice.

He, too, sounded surprised, his perfectly cultured British accent falling away into something harsher and more foreign.

"Raven?"

* * *

She doesn't turn to face him, and he takes a moment to appreciate the opposing implications of her inaction. She is so indifferent to him that she cannot be bothered to look at him; she trusts him enough that she feels no need to keep him constantly in her sight, to make sure that he won't attack her while her back is turned. It is more than he deserves. 

_He relished the feel of his claws ripping into flesh, blood spurting from severed arteries and bathing Raven's room in crimson._

"Hello, Malchior," she says evenly, and he winces openly at the icy, perfect unconcern in her voice. He would almost rather she was angry, because he can fight fire with fire, but coldness…

_He could feel his flesh blaze as she began to undress in front of him, unaware of the avidly staring audience._

… He can never be cold when it comes to her.

_Lust and fury seared through his veins in equal measure whenever he saw them together: his angel-goddess, and the upstart who dared to profane her with his rough touch._

"Dearest Raven, please—I—" He chokes on his own words, sheer agony apparent in his tone. He doesn't know what he wants of her. Forgiveness? Love? _Hate?_ He thinks that nothing could be worse than this.

_He schemed endlessly, as he lay unattended in that trunk, and this was nothing new. But the focus of his plots had shifted: where he had planned death, vengeance and domination before, now his desires were limited solely to her. He thought that perhaps world rule was a more achievable goal._

Maybe the tortured sound of his voice strikes a chord in her, for she looks back, arching an eyebrow as she sees that he has the appearance of a human. His heart skips a beat at the pure beauty she presents, her pale skin glowing in the twilit night. "Yes?" He can't identify the emotion in her voice, but it is there, and that is enough for him.

_At first, he enjoyed being able to see her unguarded moments, knowing her more intimately than anyone else. It was only a matter of time, though, before he began wanting more: after all, what is the good in knowing someone if you are never known in return?_

He finally manages to speak. "I'm… _not_ sorry." He doesn't say this out of pride, or some desperate hope that he can convince her that he is in the right. He says it because it is the truth, and he will not lie to her. Not again.

_How many times had he been forced to watch them, kissing or touching or even just talking, and realized that he could have been in the idiot's place, save for his own stupidity?_

She regards him in silence, then says, with a strange emphasis to her words, "So, you think it was justified?"

_He didn't know what he longed for the most: the touch of her skin or simply the pleasure of conversing with her, debating mythology and morality with someone every bit as knowledgeable as he._

"He deserved what I did to him and more." The venom in his own voice surprises him.

_He had promised himself that he would keep the trust Raven had placed in him, would not force his way out of his prison. But when he heard that thrice-damned boy say, "It's my girlfriend's room—creepy, huh?", there was no power on earth that could have persuaded him to stop._

She looks at him, the faintest trace of disbelief touching her features. "That sounds… odd, coming from you." He doesn't know what she's talking about, and it must show on his face, because she adds dryly, "Or is attempted murder better than infidelity?"

_He was constantly berating himself for how he had used her, for his unnecessary cruelty. Even to the bitter end, he had lied: first to seduce her, then to harm her._

He winces. "Raven, I…"

_Because it was a lie—a blasphemy, the darkest heresy ever uttered—for him to say that he didn't need her._

"… I can't explain it, and there are no excuses, but…"

_He would always need her._

"… I would never—not in a thousand years—hurt you like that again." He turns away, disgusted by his own weakness. "I don't expect you to believe me."

_And he would always hate himself for the acts that had sprung from his futile struggle against that need._

"How can I?" Something in her tone makes him look back. Her gaze is a mixture of defiance and honest curiosity. "You tried to kill me and my friends, taught me dark magic, lied to me about who you were, actually _did_ kill my—teammate, if nothing else…" She trails off, and he realizes that this is possibly the longest speech he's ever heard from the reserved girl. Well, it's not like he hasn't given her plenty of material.

_It wasn't the archer's betrayal he thought of as he sank serrated teeth into the already dead, but still warm, flesh._

"How can I trust you now?"

_It was his own._

"You shouldn't," he tells her, feeling a tiny seedling of hope spring up in his chest despite his words. "I have nothing to… to prove what I say, but all the same…"

_He fled afterwards—not out of fear of retribution, but so that he wouldn't have to see the disappointment in her eyes._

"… I—I care for you."

_He didn't know what this feeling was, but he didn't like it._

"Gods help me… I think I love you."

_He didn't like it one bit, and he liked the sneaking suspicion that, given a choice, he would actually _keep_ this strange emotion even less._

He expects her to be horrified, or at least surprised, but she just looks at him calculatingly. It's unnerving.

_He would never have expected her to choose the redhead; but, then, she had always been able to surprise him._

"You mean it," she murmurs, still giving him that positively _eerie_ look. Slowly, her expression morphs into one of sorrow. "Malchior…"

_He tormented himself with fantasies, fanciful daydreams of a future where they are together._

He cannot stand the compassion in her eyes. It is too close to pity, and even if he could bring himself to accept the pity of another, he doesn't want to think about what it would mean under the circumstances.

_There are other fantasies, too, ones that would have brought a blush to the cheeks of Satan himself and might have proved to be quite embarrassing if he still had a physical body. As it was, they merely threatened to drive him insane, not kill him with unfulfilled lust._

He kisses her.

_Sometimes he wondered what she would do if he became the paper replica of his body and tried to act out some of the dreams. Would she—no, she'd send him to the tenth ring of hell and then burn his book for good measure._

He is kissing her, and she does nothing, neither pushes him away nor responds. But her body is trembling against his, and he doesn't stop, trying to pour all of his sincerity and passion and even desperation into this one kiss.

_Not even in his imagination can he stretch the truth that far._

Eventually, he pulls back, noting with a hint of smugness that she was blushing.

_It could never happen._

"Raven…"

_Now that all he had to do…_

"No."

… _Was convince himself to let her go._

Her voice is steady and sure, and he realizes with a sudden pang that whatever he may be able to do to her body, her hearts is forever beyond his grasp.

_The fantasies were not his worst torment, while he was locked away._

Slowly, she steps back and draws out a long, glimmering sword. He recognizes it instantly, flinching at the memories it brings to mind. That sword had tasted his blood many times, before he was sealed into the book.

_It was the hope that they might someday come true._

He feels as though the world is crumbling beneath his feet. "But… but…"

_He is dependent on that hope._

"You're right; I shouldn't trust you," she says calmly, though the blood has left her face. "You've hurt me too much." Her voice slowly drains of emotion. "Go."

_And that dependence will break him._

He goes. Dragon-tears fall from the sky as he flies.

_He knows this, can predict it without even magic to aid him._

He never sees the answering tears on her cheeks.

_But we cannot alter fate._

* * *

Yes, yes, sad ending. I'm very sorry, but I wrote this the day before my dance performance (if you've read any of my notes to other fics, you might have noticed that I really, really stress over these) and three days before my final exams, so I was just a little tense. Just a little. And sad endings are more calming than happy endings, for some reason. 

I'm also very sorry that I made Speedy a bastard, and then killed him-- I didn't actually pick a character as her boyfriend until I had finished the entire thing and was going back to edit it. For the most part, Speedy annoys me a bit, but I didn't do this to him on purpose: he just seemed like a nice foil for Mal.

Hmm... I think the italicized bits in the second half are xxxHolic-influenced. Typical: I write one fic on it and then it's permanently engraved into my brain.

(And one last note: I _defy_ Zoi to find a "funniest line ever" in this one!)


	2. II

**A/N: ** Honestly? I have no clue what this is, besides just flat-out weird. And morbid. Definitely morbid. You'll see what I'm talking about. I screwed with the tenses even more than usual here, so sorry if it's hard to read. Like the first one, it might be easier to just read the italicized bits as a separate but related story.

* * *

**II**

Raven is beautiful.

_Even in death._

She is beautiful and it is a beauty that at once transcends and is embodied in the quiet way she moves; the self-possession that is so readily apparent, even now, when she is fighting for her life and he can easily tell from his position in the shadows that she is cursing her luck and her stupidity for venturing into this part of town alone.

_He was dying and she was dead, and he wondered at the fact that a lifeless corpse could manage to look graceful still as it lay crumpled in an abandoned alley._

He enjoys watching her fight; it is the only time when he can see her lose even an ounce of that iron restraint, for all that he watches her everyday actions with a regularity that would disturb him were it anyone else doing it.

_He discovered with a wave of frustration that he could not even summon the strength to reach over those few inches to touch her face, her cheek, her lips. Even dead, she manages to avoid him._

Her eyes flash as the mysterious assailant (a man dressed in crimson robes with a shock of white hair that briefly puts him in mind of Rorek, though there's no way that the holier-than-thou wizard would have even known the spells this man was using) manages to score a hit on her arm, and he watches a myriad assortment of emotions flash across her face.

_It was a mistake to let her know how much power she had over him. Not because she would try to abuse it; she ran from it, fearing that she might unconsciously but still unfairly use him, and perhaps if she hadn't run they would both have come out all right. But she did, and they wouldn't._

She plummets towards the ground, and he moves instinctively to cushion her fall, but she regains herself and regards her adversary coldly. The red-clad man is laughing exultantly, but he stops when he notices that she has not fallen completely.

_He knew he should have done something differently, but he didn't care. He couldn't have watched her die without making at least an attempt to save her, and his only regret was that he failed._

"You—you aren't dead!" the criminal splutters, and with that a death warrant is sealed. If Raven doesn't finish the moron off, he will, and he'll be sure to make it slow and torturous. He can feel his fingernails elongating already and has a sudden, intoxicating vision of what it would feel like to sink his claws into this pathetic fool's chest, to rip the heart out and throw it as far away as he could. "That—how—you—" He hasn't killed since… since…

_Perhaps he should have just stayed in the book in the first place, let Raven revenge herself on the betraying bastard without his help, even though it would have come nowhere close to what the boy deserved—no. He mentally shook his head, since his real one felt as though any sudden movement would send it rolling away across the pavement. No—better this than to let her die here alone, to learn of her demise from stray bits of dialogue spoken over and around him, never really knowing what had happened._

…Since the archer and the girl. He presses his lips together and sinks farther into the darkness. The image of her haunted eyes has yet to cease tormenting him; he will not compound his multitude of betrayals by doing the same thing again.

_He welcomed the blackness that was beginning to cloud his mind and prey at the corners of his eyesight, because it was starting to sink in that Raven was actually, truly dead—gone, lost to him forever, because he had no illusions about where he was going after he died—and that simply did not bear thinking of._

Raven just smiles at the bastard, but it is a smile that he would never want turned on himself: razor-sharp, cold as an Arctic freeze and twice as deadly. "No, I'm not," she agrees, and there is something indescribably _wrong_ with her voice. He suddenly wonders exactly what the curse that hit her consisted of.

_He spent his final moment analyzing her face, feeling inordinately grateful that her hood had fallen back and only a few strands of hair obscured her features. She looked calm, almost inhumanly so, and he thought that maybe he had misjudged her spirit all along._

"B—but," the fool splutters, staring at her, and then does something that takes everyone but Raven by surprise: he turns and runs.

_She appeared to be… at home in death, serene in a way that he had never seen her while she was alive. It was unsettling, not in the least because it so forcefully reminded him of what she was and what he was, and which of them had been strong enough to overcome the fate that their birth consigned them to. And which of them had not._

She is on the man in a moment, and the group of useless scum that has gathered behind him gasps audibly at the distinct, sickening crack of the spine as it is snapped in two. He couldn't care less, though he does wish that it had been longer and more painful; but this is her fight, and his brow furrows. She has never killed like this.

_He did not resent her the victory, but he was reminded of it, and the knowledge was agonizing. Not simply because she had succeeded where he had failed, but because she had been forced to forgo so much of a normal existence for it, and only now was he realizing the depth of her sacrifice in doing so—now, when he was too weak to show her that he recognized this and she was so far beyond seeing it._

He knows that he is right and that something is wrong when she stands motionless over the man's body, making no effort to disperse the crowd that is beginning to move towards her. Her head is bowed and her entire body seems to have drawn into itself, not shrinking but becoming tight and compact and tense. He sees her clutch at her right arm, the arm that had been hit, and scowls.

_Certainly, he had done nothing to ease her struggles. He had no right to want her, when all that he had given her was pain; but want her he did._

Damn that worthless excuse for a mage. He has never been particularly concerned about speaking ill of the dead, and he isn't about to start now. Profanities spill from his lips as he starts forward, ignoring the people he knocks down in his haste. What—in the name of ever god and goddess, by all that mortals have ever believed in—what is wrong with her?

_He was pulled from his musings by a scream. He didn't look away from Raven's face until the crying redhead obscured his view; then he glanced up. Her teammates had surrounded her, and he felt unreasonably angry that they could not have waited another few minutes._

She turns to face him, and he realizes with a start that she knew he was there from the beginning. Her lips pull up in a terrible, horrifying mimic of a smile, and she says—perfectly calm—"Ironic."

_Perhaps he didn't deserve to die alone with her, either; but he would have liked to anyways._

"Huh?" is all that he can manage to choke out, and then she unclasps her cloak and lets it fall back and he forgets how to speak.

_One of the half-wits—he couldn't tell which, all the faces were blurring and he had never made a great effort to memorize their features in the first place—looked at him, and then stumbled over, walking around piles of rubble without ever seeing at them._

For a second, he thinks that he is watching dark blood pour down her arm below the torn sleeve, but it doesn't seem to pool properly when it hits the ground and his heart stops when he realizes that it is her _magic_ that is falling.

"_Dude, can you help?" the figure asked and he thought that he should be able to identify it based on voice alone—surely he had heard that voice before!—but he can't and there is such raw desperation in that tone that he tells the truth._

"Ironic that I should die in front of you."

"_I tried."_

He looks at her again, praying that it is a mistake, a lie, a half-truth, anything but reality—but her face is weary and resigned and imperceptibly touched with regret beneath the mask she wears to conceal her pain. She is telling the truth, and he cannot think that she would be mistaken about something like this. His heart stops again, and this time it never truly starts.

_The boy let out a strangled sob and turned away, and he could hear him pleading with her corpse to wake, joining the chorus of lamentations that surrounded her._

He stares at her, at her face and form and the raw power pouring from her numb fingertips, and has a moment of pure cowardliness. He could turn around and leave right now; no one will know.

_Fools. She was gone. It would have been more painful to think that if he wasn't so certain that he would soon follow._

But if he does that, it will be as though he has all but killed her himself. And he doesn't think that he could live with that.

_He closed his eyes and let the darkness take him._

He growls softly. He knows what he must do. "Damn it."

_It would be hours before the Titans remembered to check on the status of the strange man that they had found lying next to their friend's body. By then, he was already cold._

Her eyes widen as she realizes what he intends. "No."

* * *

"No." She cannot believe that he is even entertaining the idea. No, actually, she can. Aphrodite is a miserable bitch. 

_She hated to think of his—what? Confession? Declaration? Parting shot? She didn't need to know that he was in love with her; she didn't want to._

He ignores her and reaches for her arm. She jerks back. He's gone mad; it's the only explanation. "I said no!" Her voice is tinged with anger and near-panic, and it is almost fortunate that she has lost so much strength because if she hadn't the buildings around her would probably have been reduced to debris by now.

_It would be so much easier if he wasn't, because then she wouldn't have to worry about inadvertently taking advantage of his feelings. Of him._

"And I'm ignoring you." His fingers wrap around her wrist like handcuffs, and she shudders at the fury that is radiating from his skin like a tangible presence. She is too weak to control her empathy properly, and it will overload her soon. Already, she is being barraged by waves of fear and hate and overpowering curiosity from the lowlifes that are brave enough to creep within her range.

_She didn't know what she felt for him anymore, really. It wasn't hate and it wasn't love—or, at least, it wasn't what she knew of love—but nor was it the curious, painful mix of the two that she had become so familiar with in the long days after they were both gone._

The mob keeps inching closer, and she stumbles a little, almost wishing that she could just hurry up and die already because there is no way that Hell could be worse than this. "You want to help?" she hisses softly, fending of the shadows with thoughts of what he might do if she were to pass out and be unable to stop him. "Then get them away."

_She watched as one flew into the sky, unmourned by anyone but her, the one who had sent him away; she watched as the other was buried in sacred ground with ceremony and grandeur and half the city's tears._

He catches her as she topples forward, pain and exhaustion taking their toll, and she can feel his chin brush the top of her head as he turns to look at the steadily growing crowd. She doesn't see what he does, but her hair ruffles as though in a sudden breeze and the crushing pressure of the outside consciousnesses fades away rapidly. "Thank you," she breathes against his neck, not bothering to pull away because it's almost over and she figures it's okay if she lets herself feel—just this one last time.

_She wept for both of them._

His breath catches at the sensation, and she can feel his throat working convulsively to hide his reaction. She can't understand why he bothers—she is the only one around to witness it, and she will be gone soon enough, regardless of his efforts.

_In a way, she supposed, she could say that she had moved on. She certainly didn't think of him every day, or even every month, after a while. She didn't waste away pining for him; she didn't regret forcing him to leave. It had to be done, and so she did it. And yet…_

As if prompted by her thoughts, the dragon turns her gently so that her back is resting against his chest and extends her wounded arm in front of them both. One of his hands runs down her arm in a slow, sensuous caress, and for a moment Raven forgets what he is doing, spellbound by the sight of her magic running like liquid darkness through his fingers.

… _And yet he had taken so much of her with him—not her heart; she was not yet that sentimental—but her daydreams, her faint, half-acknowledged fantasies of what might have been, if he had not lied, if he had been the hero he had claimed to be, if he had explained his nature to her sooner, if he hadn't attacked her friend, if he hadn't killed._

The moment passes quickly enough, though, when he presses his palm over the cut, and she thrashes with all of her fading strength against his hold. "No!" she snaps again. "I don't care if _you're_ suicidal, but don't drag me into it!" A lie, of course; she cares very much if he is suicidal, but she knows that he isn't—that this is about some misguided, romantic notion of self-sacrifice, of refusing to acknowledge that she is truly beyond all hope. Sickening, foolish, thoughtless delusion to kill them both.

_If love really did make for happy endings._

He is too cunning to actively seek his own death, or so she has thought. What would be the point? He is intelligent enough to realize that dead, he is neither help nor hindrance; he is arrogant enough to abhor the idea of being condemned to such an irrelevance. So why this? Does he think that she _wants_ him to kill himself over her? Does he think that she is that weak?

_Sometimes, she wondered how people could be so completely absorbed by their own delusions. She had never been able to indulge in this sort of self-deception—to see things as she wanted them to be, as opposed to how they were. That was what she did when she first met Malchior, when she believed him utterly and without a shred of evidence._

He ignores her, but she can feel his muscles tense as he begins to pour his own magic into the wound. She has no power to put up even a token resistance, and the flesh surrounding her slice begins to tingle painfully back to life. She almost laughs; perhaps he is only seeking a legacy as the first dragon in living memory to die through pointless altruism. It wouldn't surprise her. Nothing would surprise her anymore. Maybe it's good that she will die soon—she doesn't think that she could continue to live and still stay sane. She doesn't think that she is sane at this moment. What is sanity?

_She fought, ever since then; fought to keep herself grounded, fought to see everything as it was, so that she could never be tricked like that again. If nothing else, he had given her a lasting lesson on the seductiveness and ultimate meaninglessness of words: how little they meant and how little they should be trusted. It didn't always work—Terra, for one; Speedy, before he died—but she never quite forgot._

Is it sane to wish as she is coming back from the brink of death that she could go back? Is it sane to hate her savior for loving her, to love him though the hate, to pity him more than either of these for his desire to accomplish the impossible? Is this insanity? Is she mad, and that is why that when the heat racing through her veins goes lukewarm she is grateful beyond the power of words to describe?

_Perhaps she should not call it a lesson—perhaps it was more of a scar._

Malchior's weight begins to fall on her, and she collapses beneath him to the rough asphalt. He groans, almost, and just manages to roll off before his body smothers the newborn flicker of life. "Raven?" His voice is weak, so weak, and if she were strong and sane she would scream with pain at hearing him so broken. But she is half-dead and mad, so her lips curl in a smile as even the lukewarmness fades into metaphorical ice. Maybe it really is ice that is forming in her veins. Who know how demons die when they have been drained?

_Death and life and sanity and madness. Were they polar opposites, automatically repelling the other? Or flip sides of the same coin, never apart though never quite touching? _

She thinks that she could say something now, before the final darkness engulfs her completely. It would be fitting, wouldn't it? Famous last words? He has died for her—he was an absolute, complete, and total idiot about it, true—but maybe that merits some sort of consideration?

_Neither, really, for they did touch. They were built on each other, and often the only way to distinguish one was by looking at the other. If everyone was mad, how could we know we were mad? If nothing ever died, could we truly appreciate life?_

No. She forces her eyes open, catches his one last time, and dies. Silence has always been her refuge, and now she will seek it for eternity.

_Everything is softer in the darkness._

* * *

I have absolutely no clue what I was thinking when I wrote this. None whatsoever. I was half-asleep when I came up with most of it. Hopefully no one's brain has melted... too much. 


End file.
